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I received a free paperback copy of this book from the author, this has not compromised my ability to write an honest and critical review of the book.
1/12 - The above generic disclaimer that I use for all books that I receive free from the publisher or author doesn't tell the whole story. I actually requested this book from Netgalley before I made the leap and bought a Kindle to read my many eBooks on (I was previously stubbornly sticking it out trying to read them on my laptop, not how I recommend reading an eBook unless you have no other choice). I bit off a little more than I could chew, request-wise, when I first found Netgalley, and ended up with way more books than I could manage before the archive dates cut me off. For those of us who went to Kindle reading willing, if you read Netgalley books on Adobe Digital Editions on your laptop (remember, no Kindle for me in those days) you don't get to keep the book once the archive date passes, they become no longer available, like an eBook borrowed from the library. I posted a short review explaining why I hadn't read the book and therefore couldn't rate or review it and thought nothing further of it, until I received an email from Mike offering me a free copy of Night Tide and an ARC of the newest book in his Blake Sanders series in return for an honest review (as if I could write anything else).
Finally got started last night (I was planning to start it last week, but other books got in the way). The first thing I noticed was the summary on the back of the book is quite detailed, possibly too detailed. As I was reading it I was thinking "Oh, don't tell me that, that's too much information for a summary, there should be some surprises left for me to find as I read." It felt like I was reading a spoiler-filled review instead of the teaser that I associate with the normal back-of-the-book summary. The end of the following sentence only added to the confusion
'...gunning for all those he holds responsible for his 20-year stint in stir, including Blake.'
I'm guessing a 'stint in stir' has something to do with going to jail, but I've never heard that particular piece of slang before (if that's what it is). Is 'stir' the word that was intended to be used here? I'm not sure, but it doesn't make sense to me.
Upon actually starting on the internal words of the book I came to the conclusion that this should not be read as a stand-alone. I spent the first two chapters confused as to why this guy (who didn't have a name for a while, either) was outside the man's house in the early morning. Finally I worked out that he was there delivering the paper. The following sentence on page eight also left me scratching my head
'Dew on the tall grass in the weedy yard soaked through the mesh tops of my athletic shoes, spurring me to action.'
Umm, really? You decided to risk your life by running into a house with a serious gas leak because your feet were getting wet?! That makes no sense to me, at all. You rescue people from imminent gas explosions because you love them or you're a good person or you're paid to, not because your feet are getting wet.
I was getting ready to say that the editing had been good, but then on page 12
'And now it had cost her hera marriage...'
I'm not sure if the 'a' is the typo or the second 'her' is. It could be either '...cost her a marriage...' or '...cost her her marriage...'. To be continued...
2/12 - This is going to be a long review :| Fifty pages in 24 hours, fifty pages since my last update, fifty pages which are full of post-its marking things that I felt needed to be included in my review.
On page 16 a sentence near the top of the page is started
'Literally--literally'
On page 19
'...a sense of gratitude for whichever Fates had conspired to delimit flying glass and flames to the night air, not flesh.
Looking at the way the word is being used in the sentence, I'm guessing what Sherer means is 'restrict', but delimit doesn't mean restrict it means, according to Merriam-Webster, 'to fix or define the limits (of something)'. If you swap 'delimit' for one of its synonyms, 'define' for example, the sentence makes even less sense. Clearly, delimit is not the right word for what Sherer is trying say.
On page 29
'A collar pin in the freshly- starched, snowy white shirt pushed the knot of a regimental tie into the room like a signal flag.'
I wasn't going to mention the extra space between the hyphen and starched, but then when I read about the phenomenon occurring in the same sentence between a collar pin and a tie I figured it wouldn't require much more effort on my part. Either I don't know what a collar pin looks like, or this particular one is behaving in a manner contrary to the norm. In fact, it kind of reminds me of a bad description of an erection from a Kindle freebie romance novella.
On page 33
'Wink used one I cut for him in my father's hardware store, from a duplicate he'd fashioned out of a soda can. That made me implicit, an accessory.
Implicit and complicit do not mean the same thing. Implicit means 'implied though not plainly expressed', 'suggested' and 'insinuated' are both synonyms. Complicit means 'involved with others in an illegal activity or wrongdoing', which is what I'm assuming Sherer was trying to convey in the above sentence.
On page 41 we meet a friend of Blake's, Charlie and Charlie's parents, Connie and Clayt. Clayt? That's a very unfortunate name. When I read it, it looks like it has a typo and when I say it out loud it makes me think of the word 'plate'. Is it short for Clayton? That would have been a better choice, it looks less like a spelling mistake.
On page 45
'Bright out here. Wish I'd brought shades. When had my future stopped being so bright I no longer had to wear them?'
Exaggerate much? I've only known Blake Sanders for 45 pages, but from what little I've read that seems way too dramatic for his personality.
On page 46 some black clad men burst in on Blake and Charlie's BBQ lunch. All very exciting, well it would usually be, except that Sanders spends all bar 1.5 lines of the following page thinking about taking action. In the time it would take to think all the things he thinks on that full page waffle, Charlie should have been dead many times over. While I was reading page 47 all I could think was "Stop analysing, remembering, and mantra-ing and just shoot." He even tells himself to stop thinking and move, but it still takes another long paragraph before he manages to fire his weapon.
On page 55
'The chopper rose swiftly, nose dipping as it cleared the treetops, and zoomed out of sight, a giant dragonfly in search of prey.'
Seeing as that 'giant dragonfly' is a medevac helicopter on its way to the hospital I don't think the description of it as being 'in search of prey' is very sensitive to its actual purpose.
This has started out very slowly. I'm really hoping the pace, and descriptive language, and editing, and well everything picks up quickly. To be continued...
10/12 - I had to force myself to read more of this, I almost certainly wouldn't have if it hadn't been generously given to me by the author (my only concession to receiving a free book). I am not enjoying this and don't foresee it getting any better - I don't feel like I understand Sanders at all, the plot has potential but misses the mark Sherer was aiming for, the action scenes (which I had been looking forward to) are lacklustre due to too much thinking by the main character, and every second page there's an editing problem that I can't just not see.
On page 78
'"I think I quite literally went out of my head for a time."'
No, you didn't, because if you had literally left your head you would be dead. This is a case of hyperbole gone mad, if the phrase 'quite literally' had not been added it would have been fine and taken as the exaggeration it's meant to be, but you add that phrase and it tells me the speaker means it literally, not figuratively.
On page 81
'He, too, wagged his head to and fro as if looking for something...'
First, why is everyone suddenly 'wagging' their heads? What's wrong with the word 'shake'? Wagging is for dog's tails and kids who don't want to go to school, not for people's heads. Second, if he was 'wagging' his head in the way a dog wags its tail he would never be able to find anything he might be looking for as his head would be moving too fast (when does a dog wag its tail slow enough to match the speed of someone scanning an area, looking for something?). Third, it says 'he, too...', as if there is someone else with him who is also 'wagging' their head, there isn't, the only other person wagging their head on this page is Blake and he was in a previous scene, nowhere near this unnamed man.
On page 82
'...removed the M1911A1 Remington .45 automatic pistol...'
That's an overshare of gun identification information. Either 'Remington .45' or '.45 automatic' is plenty of detail, all those serial numbers made my eyes glaze over.
On page 83
'...his sharp facial features softened by the brume hanging in the air...
I congratulate the author on knowing the word 'brume', but have to rescind that congratulations due to the fact that this isn't the book to parade your wide vocabulary. There are times (books) when it's great to have a thesaurus-like vocabulary and there are times (books) when it just comes off as trying too hard.
On page 86
'"...when he had so many to environmental beefs to choose from here..."'
Clearly that's an unnecessary 'to'.
On page 99
'"I did. Army. Arty METRO, over in 'Nam. 'Sixty-eight, 'sixty-nine'69."..."Enlisted. There was no draft until 'seventy.'70."
I'm not sure exactly what happened here, but obviously there's no need to repeat numerals in both words and digits. I would go with the digits as the more recognised way of abbreviating dates is '69, rather than 'sixty-nine.
Further down the same page
'"Did that for the first month, twenty-four/seven."'
You don't spell out 'twenty-four/seven', that's a phrase that's always written as 24/7.
I skipped a number of editing mistakes that are simply repetitions of what has already been mentioned in one of my earlier updates. There are so many problems with this book that even though it was free I don't know if I will be able to finish reading it, knowing that in order to write an honest review there is likely to be many more problems I have to get past to get to the end. If I do make the effort to keep reading to the end, and include all the errors in my review, I feel like I'll be getting the short end of the stick in this deal. I'll have spent quite a lot of time reading and reviewing a book that I'm absolutely not enjoying. If only another hour or so was needed to finish reading and writing the review that would be fine and I would be happy to do it, but the number of errors I've come across in just 100 pages makes that seem highly unlikely. I've got another 332 pages to go, which I can see taking me many, many hours to finish reading and reviewing and I'm not sure I want to make the effort. I'll take another couple days break, read some near-due library books and have another look at the situation after the weekend. To be continued...
1/1 - I planned to take the weekend off from this book, three weeks ago. Despite the book sitting on the corner of the dining table, where I walk past it multiple times a day, I've barely thought about it in those three weeks. Night Tide really isn't working for me on any level. I give it four stars for the original idea, minus three for the execution of that idea (see details above). DNF at page 103.
